


man of my dreams

by avalonjoan



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Dreams, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 09:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17363459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avalonjoan/pseuds/avalonjoan
Summary: Kent keeps having dreams about Jack.  He wants them to mean something.





	man of my dreams

Kent wakes up at 1 AM, nearly positive that he has a fever.  He can’t stop shaking and his mouth is dry and he’s nauseated.  It isn’t until he’s standing in the bathroom, splashing water on his face, that he remembers his dream.

He was in a crowd, not any specific event, just a room filled with constantly-moving people.  He was walking around like he was looking for someone, but he didn’t know who he was looking for.  At one point, Kent turned and caught a glimpse of Jack, but before he could call out or walk toward him, Jack slipped out of view.  Kent had gone after him, occasionally finding him, but each time, the other man would vanish as Kent approached.

He opens the medicine cabinet, takes his temperature and, finding it normal, throws back two Tylenol for good measure.  Cupping his hands, he drinks from the sink until he’s stopped trembling enough to go back to bed.

It’s been a month since the draft.  Jack hasn’t returned a single call. Kent calls him again anyway.

* * *

They’re on the plane back from Montreal when Jeff shakes him awake.

“You were talking in your sleep,” he says.

Kent blinks, rubbing at his eyes. “What was it?”

“Just the name ‘Jack’ a few times,” Jeff tells him with a shrug. “I was about to fall asleep, too.”

“Sorry,” Kent says, “Just a friend from home.”

He shifts in his seat, making it look like he’s going back to sleep.  Really, he’s thinking back to the elevator in his dream. He had walked in to find Jack standing inside.  To his surprise, Jack started talking. Not to Kent, but to someone else in the elevator. Kent didn’t see their face.  

It’s the first time he’s heard Jack’s voice in over a year.

* * *

They go back to Jeff’s place after a few rounds at their favorite off-strip bar.  It’s a dim place that tourists miss, and they pour heavy. Kent falls asleep on the couch, with Jeff on the leather armchair beside it.  He wakes up feeling like death, the sun coming through the open curtains. His head hurts, he’s ninety percent sure he’s going to throw up, and he’s got a tightness in his chest.

He had seen Jack in his booze-fueled dream, this time at a park.  He had chased a stray ball toward some picnic tables by a chain link fence. Jack was sitting there, talking to another faceless person, a textbook open on the table.  This time, he turned to Kent and smiled. I’d like to talk with you, he had said. He handed Kent a slip of paper, presumably with a place and time, but Kent couldn’t remember what it really said. Kent had left the park, the flutter in his chest bleeding over after he woke.

“Hey, Jeff,” Kent manages, stretching his leg over the arm of the couch to poke at his teammate’s arm.

Jeff groans and covers his eyes with his arm. “What?”

“What does it mean that I keep dreaming about my ex?”

Jeff lifts his arm away just enough to raise an eyebrow at Kent. “That we shouldn’t have had those last 3 shots.”  He pulls the hood of his sweatshirt down over his eyes. “I might die if I move, but you’re welcome to take the bedroom.”

Kent chuckles, pushing himself up from the couch.  He finds his phone on the end table, turning the screen on to look at the time.  There’s a notification from ESPN just below it: Jack Zimmermann Signs with Providence Falconers.

When he falls asleep in Jeff’s bed, appreciating the blackout curtains that kept the desert sun and the city lights at bay, he wonders if Jack’s face will look the same across the ice as it does in his dreams.

* * *

Kent waits for more dreams to come.  They’re prophecies, he tells himself.  Sometimes he walks to his car in the morning and gets the feeling in his chest that he had one.  He’ll spend the drive to the rink trying to remember, but he never does.

* * *

They play the Falconers for the first time in December, on the Aces’ home ice.  Kent keeps looking around from the moment he gets to the rink. He can’t decide if he wants to run into Jack or if he’d prefer that they stay on their respective parallel paths.  There are voices down the hall and he walks faster toward the locker room. He’s not sure he would recognize Jack’s voice now.

He can’t avoid Jack on the ice, but he can avoid making eye contact with him at faceoff.  But then he starts missing passes, overshooting, icing the puck. Coach Bouchard pulls him aside at first intermission.  “I don’t know what’s going on, Parson,” he says, “but get your shit together.”

“Sure thing,” Kent replies.  He sits in his stall and pulls up the app his therapist made him get to help him breathe.  It doesn’t work.

Things somehow get worse in the second period.  He’s positive that Coach is going to pull him, but before he gets the chance, the Falconers’ enormous right winger slams him against the boards.  

He blacks out.

He opens his eyes.

His helmet is off and his head is resting against the ice. There’s something around his neck.  The trainer is looking down at him. Someone shines a light in his eyes. “There we go,” the trainer says. “How you feeling, kid?”

Fuzzy.  Distant.  “This is a dream,” Kent says, trying to sit up.

“This isn’t a dream.” Someone, maybe an EMT, puts a hand on his shoulder to gently hold him down. “Don’t move, okay?”

Kent lies back onto the ice.  There are too many voices talking; some to him, some around him, all against the half-hushed crowd. Everyone’s faces look a little different.  He thinks he sees the team doctor, but he doesn’t quite recognize her. Definitely a dream.

“He’s going to be okay, yeah?” Kent hears someone down by his hips.  He can’t tilt his head to see, but he knows that voice.

Reaching up with his left hand, he grabs at the air beside him.  Someone’s taken his gloves off, too. “Where’s Jack?” he says. The words are thick.  “I hear him.”

A hand meets his, squeezes it.  “I’m here, Kenny,” Jack says, his accent stronger than Kent remembered.  Then again, it used to come out more when Jack’s emotions were running high. “You took a bad hit, but you’re going to be okay.”

Kent lets someone roll him to the side, then onto a backboard. He grabs Jack’s hand tighter when they lift him onto the stretcher.  He can tell that they’re getting close to the tunnel when the crowd starts cheering. He lifts his other hand, the universal sign to the crowd that he’s still alive.  

“I need you to let go,” someone says, “so we can take you back and get you checked out.”

He doesn’t.  “I want to see him.”

There’s a pause, and then Jack’s leaning over him.  “What is it, bud?”

Kent smiles. He feels a little drunk. “It’s really you.”

“Sure is.” Jack smiles back at him.  “I’ll find you after the game, yeah?” Kent nods, as much as the collar will allow. “But you need to go with the doctor now.”

“Okay.”  He doesn’t want to let go, but he loosens his grip just enough to allow Jack to move his hand away.  As the stretcher rolls him down the tunnel, he closes his eyes. He knows that they’re going to keep waking him up when they get to hospital, but he’ll take what rest he can get.  He needs to be awake to see Jack.

 


End file.
